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Coping: Studio Notes

The lighting came up (as planned) in the new UrbanSurvival sound studio where (in the future) podcasts and such will originate from, along with the odd assortment of singers and local arts by invitation only.

The main thing is that it leaves only three projects left: Floating the leveling compound on the floor and then laying the engineered floor (1). After that, there’s the installation of the sound conditioning (ATS Wedge Foam Acoustic Panels (Burgundy) – 24x24x2 (6pk), $49) (2). And then the construction and installation of the console.

Designing the console is really a simple thing once you hang out at Lowes a bit: I only need a four-foot wide desk (the mixer isn’t too wide) and you can pick up a section of prefab kitchen counter for $54-bucks with a dark (almost black) faux granite that has enough design in it to make an optical mouse happy.

Slap on sides and legs (one see of plywood, a couple of two-by-fours whacked up, just so) and you can have a really good looking console for about $150, which includes the over-sized slide-out keyboard drawer. That’s another prefab, by the way: Valencia Series Underdesk Keyboard/Mouse Shelf, 28w x 12d, Mahogany. Sure, it was $35-bucks, but I figure (perhaps wrongly!) that my time is worth something and by the time I diddle around with the hardware and finishing, guess what’s cheaper?

This whole construction project, build-out, and then operation of the studio will come together this fall in an online recording engineer school. Though, I will be careful to note that this won’t get you a job since it’s avocational (recreational) in nature. But by the time you’re done with it, this will be the coolest way to get your church choir, PA system, home recording/garage band sound set up you can find.

My thinking is that $29 bucks for a whole course (including books, videos, equipment lists, basics of recording/mixing, and construction details, and completion certificate) is a lot more effective than the “hit and miss” approach.

One of the reasons for our trip up to Tacoma this year is to sit down and record (if we can) with one of the most proficient soundmen/engineers you’ve never heard of.

If you’re wonder who this old school marvel is? No, he doesn’t have any albums out that you’d recognize. But you’d sure recognize the megastar voice talent he did the sound for: US Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.

I’ll let you know if that comes together…but the studio is coming slowly but well.

Hi-fi aficionados love to brag about their high-powered systems, but the main monitors in this little project are really quite modest: For the mains, there’ll be a rack of four super-tweeters sitting on top of a Bose 901 (Series II) and for bottom end a modest Polk subwoofer. Tri-amped, of course

The idea is not to have hugely loud sound: the goal is to have perfectly clean sound. At the other end of the room will be “fill” speakers (Bose 201’s) which are mainly for sound reinforcement going into the house. Anything over 85 dB for a long period of time can damage hearing so having a 120 dB sound system may seem cool, but it’s really, really dumb. (See Dangerous Decibels Org)

The trick-shot to this is each of the speakers is separately amped and there’s a equalizer on each channel;, as well. Since my experience began doing “proof of performance” measurements in broadcasting, that’s where the studio set-up portion of the course begins…how to run channel measurements and so forth.

When done, it will be about as good a studio as you’ll be able to find for a total cost of less than $4,000 which includes room construction (but doesn’t include the high-end Sennheiser mics).

I was totally impressed with Lloyd’s piano player on that set: A fellow who is still making incredible music today: Keith Jarrett. As a matter of fact, Jack DeJohnette was in that set, too…and along with Gary Peacock they make up the Keith Jarrett Standards Trio…a sample of which (goes good with coffee) is over here.

It’s an hour 44, so plan on a second cup.

Two Books Worth Reading

My friend Chris Tyreman, who’s at the epicenter of that Jewish studies group up in Saskatchewan (a center of radical thinking, lol) has release a couple of books on what the group has found in their research to date.

The first is The Destruction of Sabbath: Tracking the History of Deception. The reason you might find this one interesting is that it explores how Christendom went from being a lunar-cycle based religion to the (whatever you want call it) that it is today. There’s a good deal of evidence that lunar cycling is vastly more important to human consciousness evolution than you might otherwise think. And that’s without getting into the woo-woo *but statistically valid* data about why humans go just a little bit nuts around the full moon.

If you’re not in synch with lunar Sabbath, you may be missing a key part of spiritual development because (hate to break it to you) but Sunday ain’t Sabbath. There are some groups that still hold to the lunar cycle (Muslims, for example).

So I would recommend this one very highly since the moon’s link-up with religion is very important and I’d suggest that when we toss out thousands of years of tradition (cross-culturally when comes to the moon phases) that we miss something. Big.

What the book doesn’t answer is still bugging me – and that’s the who and the why the “right” days of rest and festival got “jacked” from the West, but there’s this city-state in Italy that’s high on my suspect list which goes back to the seemingly deliberate retooling of scripture out of the earliest available texts. And that brings us to what?

This is where the concept of earthlings as “planting” of an interplanetary civilization (which did things like set the moon in its unique position and parted the air from water, and such) are detailed. It fits much closer with what science has to say about how Life evolved here and if nothing else, it will add even more questions to your list of “WTF is really going on here?”

The group doesn’t have all the answers, but if you have scratched your head at some of the “one time use words” in Strong’s Concordance, SDH is a refreshing alternative view that suggests maybe the traditional interpretations of various concepts have been corrupted over time. And, once you understand the error correction system, the line between what might seem like science fiction (Annunaki, et al) not only blurs but becomes a flow to early history…

Recommendation? 100 Questions first, then the destruction of the Sabbath book. You have time yet before Azazel gets sprung.

Other “People Programming”

The “programming of people” is a completely fascinating topic…I don’t care if you’re coming from back in Garden times, right up until present day. The management question we each need to ask is “Who’s doing the programming?” And this gets us to a question from reader Claudia:

George,

I have started training for a new job in retail and am at a mall outside of the big ATL. In the back hallways are posters that talk about security and the Logo is: See Something, Say Something. I found it interesting because it reminds me of the propaganda that was in print when I was a child in the sixties. ( I am only 31, BTW) I had a day off today and decided to go to see Transformers. I love science fiction. Well, I notice the same type of posters in the movie in some of the street scenes. I just wanted to share observation with you. Is the message in the movie?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_defenseThe observation of Claudia is most valid: It’s all part of the DHS deep subliminal designed to keep people a bit suspect (and majorly compliant) with government edicts.

Not that it’s bad per se: It just is.

The last time we had this level of “Threat Sale” was during the Cold War with the (then) Soviets. The symbol then was the Civil Defense logo which was used for fallout shelters.

Go back and watch some old movies made during the height of the Cold War and in particular from about 1958 through about 1968. You’ll see lots of these symbols about.

See Something, Say Something serves two purposed, one intended, the other we just don’t have concrete data on: The public intent is that the slogan is designed to catch terrorists. But, if you’re in retail (clothing, or whatever) we have to wonder what the threat to national security would be from a pair of designer jeans, lol.

On the other hand, the second aspect of the sloganizing (to make people subservient to government, more willing to kowtow, more willing to toss off their rights and freedoms…well that’s the part we don’t know but based on the number of lies government tells, you might hang onto that thought, too.

So, you can’t believe government never lies, eh? Check out the movie Mirage Men (instant video – $4) for an eye-opener on the UFO front. The correct answer is “Of course government lies” but the more difficult question is “Is lying ever justified?” And if some people in govt. think so, why is it “above our pay grade?”